So fucking cheap it's priceless

Poor R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. lands in London and all hell breaks loose (and it's not what you're thinking either).

All on its own, time can generate some wonderful …well, if not ironies exactly, then cruel juxtapositions. Emmett Tyrrell, founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator, posted a bitch-and-moan extravaganza to Townhall. Oh, it's a classic piece, one that incorporates virtually all of the top 25 backlash words, phrases, and concepts, detailing how his trip to London was ruined several times over.*

I set out for London for a quiet week enjoying the arts and leisure, and what happens? I arrive the very day this class-conscious country's most self-regarding, pompous elites are gathering en masse in Hyde Park to strut their moral superiority and to order us lesser mortals to transform Africa into a middle-class suburb of Stockholm -- I refer to the singers at the idiotically named Live 8 concert.

And if that wasn't bad enough, poor Emmett had to contend with boisterous English queers and, um, decorative prophylactics blowing in the breeze.

That is not all. Just two blocks from my hotel, another gaggle of chosen people gathered, to wit, the solemn participants of Gay Pride Day, or was it Gay Pride Week? Whatever it was, it was very noisy. Its mob left a great deal of debris in the street and above the street -- where there were inflated condoms. And it lasted right through lunch, a fine time to dine al fresco even in London in July, but who wants to dine in the presence of a mob scene and amidst floating condoms?

Who indeed? Well, now that all seems trite in comparison to more recent events. And you just know that über-conservative R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. -- the man whom the U.S. Jaycees chose as one of their "Ten Outstanding Young Americans" in 1978 -- would have preferred to post a gritty first-person narrative of his front-line combat experience watching live BBC coverage of the terror bombings from his hotel room instead of this silly hissy-fitting over Geldof and gays. But life (and death) are like that. Timing is everything.

Still we get to appreciate the finely honed hypocritical viciousness about "self-regarding pompous elites" from a guy who admits he was in "London for a quiet week enjoying the arts and leisure" and felt cheated of a fine opportunity to dine al fresco. Get the feeling Emmett doesn't shop at Wal-Mart, grab a coffee at Quik-Chek, or zip into Burger King?

And even though the 2004 election has long been over, we're still going to get treated to a nasty swipe at John Kerry (oh why the hell not -- Kerry's mere existence demands it) while Emmett assesses the festive fags of London. People, behold: this is a segue for the ages:

Of the two spectacles, by far the most tolerable was the Gay Pride event. It only lasted a few hours. Moreover, the participants whom I saw did not have the superior attitude lorded over us by the Live 8 megalomaniacs. Many of the young men I spotted leaving the scene of the Gay Pride antics looked like very earnest, middle-class fellows intent on advancing their careers in the white-collar workforce once they doffed the orange hair or angel wings they were wearing for this special day. Admittedly, some wore feathers and women's lingerie, but otherwise, they seemed rather ordinary.

Many shared a peculiarity that I noted† in observing Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a few weeks back as he walked along a crowded corridor at Reagan Airport. They studiously stared at the pavement a few feet in front of them, apparently not wanting to make eye contact. I can understand why our wind-surfing, bungee-jumping, he-man war hero would fix his eyes on the ground. But I cannot explain whey these ostentatiously made-up, activist homosexuals would be so self-conscious. At any rate, they were polite.

That's so fucking cheap it's priceless!

Okay, now back to the washed-up, elitist, morally superior rockstars who lord it over us because they think they're helping the disadvantaged.

That cannot be said for the Live 8 eminences. All were boastful and defiant know-it-alls convinced that the problem in Africa is lack of money and neglect from the West, though surely, even the most drugged-up of the rock singers knows that most of the money that has been heaved at the continent since the chaotic end of colonialism has been either wasted or filched. . . .

Nonetheless, the assembled rockers shouted -- some called it singing -- threats to the political leaders of the West to take action to end the evils afflicting Africa. . . . The angry threats sounded by the Live 8 singers were matched by the angry lyrics of their songs, some of which they have been singing for decades. It is preposterous to think that this is the voice of international charity. Rather, it is the voice of modern pop entertainment, entertainment devoid of talent and ravenous for attention and money. . . . Unremarked in all the hoopla about this hypocritical spectacle is that rock is dying. The entertainers have grown tiresome. Their fake poetry and angry shouts can only be in fashion for so long, and the evidence shows that the fashion is now moribund.

Rock is dying, if not dead. Because you can't be sure the counterculture is dead until its music is dead too.

*All emphasis added.
†OP|pulp|ED fiction alert.